5

Most Food Trucks Are Cleaner Than Actual Restaurants

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Food trucks in general abide by much more stringent health guidelines than normal restaurants. Lawrence explained:

"The food trucks here are inspected three times as much as brick-and-mortar restaurants and need to pass more regulations despite having less food, less employees, and being in a much smaller place."

An inspector can give a Grade A to a restaurant by going in and out in 15 minutes, but when he goes to a food truck he'll go through it for hours, really trying to find things wrong. Questions like, "Do you keep food inside the seats?" are really degrading to answer.

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4

There Is A Secret War Between Restaurants And Food Trucks

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If you're a restaurateur angrily shaking your fist at the free-wheeling rebels of the food truck industry, there's an easy way to strike out at them: call the cops.

"They make things up, saying we are littering or disturbing the peace, just to get us out of there. In downtown L.A. and Venice, they even start yelling at us, and then say to the cops that we started it. I can't tell you how many times the cops were called on us for simply finding a place to legally park and start serving food."

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3

Food Truck Explosions Are Worryingly Common

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Food trucks contain enough flammable things to qualify them as instruments of war -- cooking oil, gasoline, propane, Sriracha. All that stuff necessitates a pre-run check that makes launching a 747 look slapdash. There's good reason to be paranoid about the state of a propane line: Last year a food truck in Philadelphia exploded due to a propane leak sparked by the grill. The same happened in Denver. And New York. And in, well, you get the picture.

If the operators don't check to make sure everything is cleaned and squared away before driving, they could find their mobile restaurant turned into a mobile napalm barrage.

KABC

2

A Good Spot Is Literally Worth Fighting For

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"A lot of truck owners think because they have parked in the same place three days in a row they should be entitled to the spot," Lawrence said. "In a place like the Santa Monica Pier or in Downtown L.A. with a lot of cops or security, there are usually no confrontations, just icy cold death stares from drivers who didn't get there first. But outside office complexes or construction sites? Be prepared for at least a shouting match."

According to Lawrence, most of the direct competition comes down to fights between trucks pitching the same style of edible wares. Variety is one thing, but if you're selling Mexican food and two other taco trucks pull in next to you, in theory they've just slashed your business by 66 percent. No one's going to wait in line if they can get almost identical fare next door.

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New York has a lot less space than L.A., and a lot more competition for spots. According to Josh, this means things get much uglier:

"In Hanover Square in the Financial District another truck owner pulled up and yelled for us to get out of our spot. We said no, but every day they went by and asked us for our spot. So, during one day, they got out and simply just attacked us. Other food trucks got involved, and soon enough different owners were defending their trucks, because each spot meant that they could pay the bills that day. If they lost it to others taking it by force, then they would sink. Eventually the cops came, and like the CVS situation, sent everyone away, making everyone miss the lunch rush."

1

You Either Get A Restaurant Or Die

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Most food truck owners actually buy a truck as a stepping stone toward either getting hired as a chef or starting their own brick-and-mortar restaurant. The food truck acts like a combination viral marketing campaign and mobile testing lab. Many new restaurants fail because they wind up with a bad location. Starting off with a food truck is a good way to know in advance if a location is highly trafficked, sparsely populated, or haunted by a pesky old man pretending to be a ghost in order to drive real estate prices down.

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But here's the thing -- most food trucks make only enough to (barely) pay the bills. Josh is still going (and was able to get started only after winning on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire), but Lawrence had to end it after two years because he was barely breaking even. He went back to working in other people's food trucks.

Via Josh Gatewood

The trick is to make good food that's unique enough to draw people in, but not crazy enough to scare them away. To the man on the street, food trucks are a slightly more convenient, slightly cheaper alternative to sitting down in a restaurant. But to the people who run them, they're a dangerous gamble, a lottery ticket that might net them a hit restaurant, break their credit history forever, or explode half a city block when the propane line knocked loose by a pothole meets the stoner toking up behind the truck to "really get in the burrito zone."

Evan V. Symon is the Personal Experience Team interview finder guy. If you have an awesome experience or job you would like to see as an article, hit up the tipline at tips@cracked.com. Lawrence has a radio show on food every Thursday night at 8 p.m. PT here. Josh is on Twitter, and if you are in New York, stop by his food truck and eat the best chicken tenders ever. They taste like America.

For more insider perspectives, check out 4 Lies Reality Shows Rely On (That Are Worse Than You Think) and 5 Disgusting Truths About Every Restaurant (From a Chef).

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